Using geographic data to identify correlated geographic synonyms

ABSTRACT

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that that uses geographic data to identify correlated geographic synonyms in search queries. A correlated geographic synonym occurs when two terms that are possible synonyms should not be considered synonyms because they are associated with related geographic context. During operation, the system receives a term and a possible synonym for the term. The system then determines whether the term and the possible synonym are both present in a geographic data set. If so, the system uses the geographic data set to determine whether the possible synonym is a correlated geographic synonym for the term.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. section 119(e) to U.S.Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/854,402, entitled “Method forIdentifying Dangerous Geographic Entity Synonyms in Search Queries” byinventors Trystan Upstill and Steven Baker, filed on 24 Oct. 2006, thecontents of which are herein incorporated by reference. This applicationalso claims priority under 35 U.S.C. section 119(e) to U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 60/948,861, entitled “Using Geographic Data ToIdentify Correlated Geographic Synonyms,” by inventors Trystan Upstilland Steven Baker, filed on 10 Jul. 2007, the contents of which areherein incorporated by reference. The subject matter of this applicationis also related to the subject matter in two co-pending non-provisionalapplications by the same inventors as the instant application entitled,“Identifying Common Co-Occurring Elements in Lists,” having Ser. No.12/166,718 and filing date 2 Jul. 2008, and entitled “IdentifyingRelated Terms in Different Languages,” having Ser. No. 11/877,407, andfiling date 23 Oct. 2007. The subject matter of this application is alsorelated to the subject matter in a co-pending non-provisionalapplication by the same inventors as the instant application entitled“Determining Query Term Synonyms within Query Context,” having a Ser.No. 11/096,726 and filing date 31 Mar. 2005, and to the subject matterin a co-pending non-provisional application by Steven Baker, MaureenHeymans, Evan M. Martin, Dimitra Papachristou, Trystan G. Upstill, andKe Yang entitled “Method and Apparatus for Generating Lexical Synonymsfor Query Terms,” having Ser. No. 10/582,767, and filing date 17 Oct.2006.

BACKGROUND

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to the field ofinformation retrieval, and more specifically to the task of identifyingvalid synonyms for query terms to facilitate retrieving documents whichrelate to the query terms.

The relentless growth of the Internet makes locating relevantinformation on the World Wide Web (the Web) an increasingly challengingtask. While search engines can help users locate and retrieve a documentof interest on the Web, users often fail to select effective query termsduring the search. The problem of finding desired query results becomesincreasing challenging as the amount of information available on the Webcontinues to grow.

For example, a user may enter the query [Web hosting+fort wayne] whenthe city of Fort Wayne is usually referred to as Ft. Wayne. Or, a usermay enter [free loops for flash movie] when most relevant pages use theterm “music,” rather than “loops” and the term “animation” rather than“movie.” Thus, documents that satisfy a user's informational needs mayuse different terms than the specific query terms chosen by the user.This problem is further aggravated as the number of terms in a queryincreases. For queries longer than three or four words, there is astrong likelihood that at least one of the terms is not the best term todescribe the user's intended search. It is therefore desirable for asearch engine to automatically modify and/or expand user queries toinclude synonyms for query terms, so that retrieved documents can bettermeet the user's informational needs.

This task has proven to be difficult. A simple approach is to usepre-constructed synonym information, for example, from a thesaurus or astructured lexical database. However, thesaurus-based systems havevarious problems, such as being costly to construct and being restrictedto one language.

Some systems consider how often users substitute terms for one anotherduring query sessions to determine whether the terms are synonyms.However, such substitutions can create false synonyms that are notmeaningful, and which lead to unrelated or non-useful query results.

Accordingly, what is needed is a method and an apparatus that identifiespotential synonyms without the above-described problems.

SUMMARY

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that that usesgeographic data to identify correlated geographic synonyms whileperforming a search query. A correlated geographic synonym occurs whentwo terms that are possible synonyms should not be synonyms because theyare associated with related geographic context. During operation, thesystem receives a term and a possible synonym for the term. The systemthen determines whether the term and the possible synonym are bothpresent in a geographic data set. If so, the system uses the geographicdata set to determine whether the possible synonym is a correlatedgeographic synonym for the term.

In a variation on this embodiment, the system uses the geographic dataset to determine geographic locations and/or areas related to the termand its possible synonym. The system then compares the two geographiclocations to determine whether the term and the possible synonym arecorrelated geographic synonyms.

In a further variation, the system determines whether the term and itspossible synonym:

-   -   both identify different countries;    -   both identify different regions in the same country and/or        region;    -   both identify different cities in the same country and/or        region;    -   identify a location, city, and/or area that is contained within        a country or region specified by the other geographic location        and/or area; and/or    -   both identify different cities contained within a bounded area        having a specified size and/or shape.

In a variation on this embodiment, the system determines a languagevariation and/or a lexical variation for the term, and searches for thelanguage variation and/or the lexical variation for the term in thegeographic data set.

In a further variation, the system determines a language variationand/or a lexical variation for a term by: translating the term intoanother language; and/or determining a diacritical variant for the term.

In a further variation, the system may determine that the term or thepossible synonym map to more than one geographic location and/or area inthe geographic data set. In this situation, the system receives a set ofgeographic locations and/or areas related to both the term and synonym.Then, the system compares all of the possible pairings between the twosets of locations to determine whether each pairing might comprise acorrelated geographic synonym pair.

In a variation on this embodiment, the geographic set can include one ormore of: a list of countries; a list of cities for a country; a list ofstates, provinces, and regions for a country; and/or a coordinate and/orbounding box for every entity in the geographic data set.

In a variation on this embodiment, the system considers the contextsurrounding the term and/or its possible synonym when determiningwhether the possible synonym is a correlated geographic synonym.

In some embodiments of the present invention, the system adjusts systembehavior for the correlated geographic synonyms. For instance, thesystem can adjust synonym behavior for the two correlated geographicsynonyms and/or not consider two correlated geographic synonyms to bevalid synonyms.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 illustrates the crawling, ranking and searching processes inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2A presents a flowchart illustrating a method for producing alteredqueries in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2B presents a flowchart illustrating a process for determining oneor more synonymous terms in the context of a query in accordance withone embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary method for determining candidatesynonyms for search query terms in accordance with one embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 4 presents a table illustrating several tests that may be used toqualify the quality or strength of a candidate synonym in accordancewith one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates how a geographic data set can be visualized as a treeof geographic entities in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 6 illustrates the process of determining correlated geographicsynonyms in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 presents a flow chart illustrating the process of identifyingcorrelated pairs in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 8 presents a flow chart illustrating the process of screeningcorrelated term pairs in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary computer system for identifying commonco-occurring elements in lists in accordance with one embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 10 presents a flow chart illustrating the process of generating agathered list of known related pairs from an initial pair of knownrelated terms in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 presents a flow chart illustrating the process of using agathered list of related term pairs to detect non-synonym terms inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description is presented to enable any person skilled inthe art to make and use the invention, and is provided in the context ofa parti-cular application and its requirements. Various modifications tothe disclosed embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled inthe art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied toother embodiments and applications without departing from the spirit andscope of the present invention. Thus, the present invention is notlimited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scopeconsistent with the claims.

The data structures and code described in this detailed description aretypically stored on a computer-readable storage medium, which may be anydevice or medium that can store code and/or data for use by a computersystem. This includes, but is not limited to, volatile memory,non-volatile memory, magnetic and optical storage devices such as diskdrives, magnetic tape, CDs (compact discs), DVDs (digital versatilediscs or digital video discs), or other media capable of storingcomputer readable media now known or later developed.

Crawling, Ranking and Searching Processes

FIG. 1 illustrates the crawling, ranking and searching processes inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention. During thecrawling process, a Web crawler 104 crawls or otherwise searches throughwebsites on Web 102 to select Web pages to be stored in indexed form indata center 108. The selected Web pages are then compressed, indexed andranked in module 105 (using the ranking process described above) beforebeing stored in data center 108.

During a subsequent search process, a search engine 112 receives a query113 from a user 111 through a Web browser 114. This query 113 specifiesa number of terms to be searched for in the set of documents. Inresponse to query 113, search engine 112 uses search terms specified inthe query as well as synonyms for search terms to identify highly-rankeddocuments that satisfy the query. Search engine 112 then returns aresponse 115 through Web browser 114, wherein the response 115 containsmatching pages along with ranking information and references to theidentified documents.

Note that some embodiments of the present invention do not require Webcrawling. For example, the techniques described herein can also workwith other document search and retrieval systems based onmanually-controlled system such as human-maintained Web portals,directories, and paid inclusion.

Synonyms

FIG. 2A is a flowchart illustrating a method for altering queries toincorporate synonyms in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention. After receiving a search query from a client, a front-endserver provides the query to the search engine, which evaluates thequery (operation 210). The front-end server and/or search engine canmaintain log files or lookup tables for storing each received query andother information. For example, each query can be stored with a useridentifier that identifies the browser and/or computer used by the user,a timestamp, and a list of some search results, such as the top tendocument IDs that correspond to the search. Other information related touser context or the search itself may also be stored.

Next, a list of search results for the search query is identified(operation 220). The search engine then evaluates the query to retrievea set of search results for the search query and returns the results tothe front-end server. During this process, the search enginecommunicates with one or more content servers to select documentsrelevant to the search query. Typically, a content server stores a largenumber of indexed documents, which are indexed and/or retrieved fromdifferent websites. Alternatively, or in addition, the content servercan store an index of documents stored on various websites. “Documents”are understood here to be any form of indexable content, includingtextual documents, images, video, audio, multimedia, presentations, andso forth.

In one embodiment, each indexed document is assigned a page rankaccording to the document's link structure. This page rank serves as aquery-independent measure of the document's importance. An exemplaryform of page rank is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,999, which isincorporated by reference herein. The search engine assigns a score toeach document based on the document's page rank (and/or otherquery-independent measure of the document's importance), as well as oneor more query-dependent signals of the document's importance (e.g., thelocation and frequency of search terms in the document).

Then, one or more synonymous terms associated with a context of thesearch query are identified based on a predetermined list (operation230). Formation of the predetermined list may be accomplished usingvarious processes. More specifically, FIG. 2B is a flowchartillustrating a process for determining one or more synonymous terms inthe context of a search query according to one embodiment of the presentinvention.

First, query pairs are identified (operation 240). (An example of thisprocess is further described in conjunction with FIG. 3 below.) In oneembodiment, this is accomplished by analyzing user query logs and lookuptables. The set of all queries received over some period are reviewedand all original and altered query pairs are identified. An alteredquery is a query obtained by replacing a phrase in the original querywith a candidate synonym. A “phrase,” in the context of the presentinvention, is one or more individual words or terms.

For example, an original query might be [free loops for flash movie],and the altered query might be [free music for flash movie]. Inaddition, certain queries may be eliminated as having insufficientcontext. For example, queries used in the analysis may be required tohave at least three terms. To facilitate identification of query pairs,possible query fragments, or “pseudo-queries,” are formed by removingphrases from the query and replacing each phrase with a token (e.g.,“:”) that acts as a variable. Then, queries that vary only by the phrasemarked with the token are identified as query pairs.

Next, information about the query pairs is analyzed (operation 250). Foreach query pair, additional information to suggest that the phrase inthe original query and altered query are synonymous is identified. Forexample, the evidence may include the frequency with which both queriesin the pair are entered by the same user within a short time interval,or the number of top results that the original query and altered queryshare.

To further ensure that candidates are effective synonymous, one or moreadditional tests can be used. One such test is to determine whether forevery query containing a phrase A, a corresponding altered query with aphrase B substituted for A has a moderately high probability ofoccurrence in the stored data. In one embodiment of the presentinvention, the required probability is 1%.

A second test is that, for every query containing A, the correspondingquery with B substituted for A has a minimum probability of beingentered by the same user in a short time interval. In one embodiment,the interval is an hour and the probability is 0.1% or greater.

A third test is that, for every query containing A, if the correspondingquery with B substituted for A occurs, the two queries have a minimumprobability of having a number of the top results in common. In oneembodiment, the probability is 60-70% and the number of results incommon is 1-3. These tests are described further in conjunction withFIG. 4.

Note that the additional tests can be performed to determine theconfidence level of a query candidate. Additionally, the system canperform a combination of these tests and assign a different weight toeach test to compute an overall confidence level of the efficacy of aquery candidate.

These tests can also be performed for subsets of query pairs in whichthe phrases appear in a particular context of adjacent words. Forexample, in the query pair [killer whale free photos] and [killer whaledownload photos], the candidate synonym pair “free,” “download” appearsin the context of following “whale,” which can be indicated as (whale:), in the context of preceding “photos,” which can be indicated as (:photos), in the context of between “whale” and “photos,” which can beindicated as (whale : photos) and in the general context, which can beindicated as the token alone (:).

For each phrase, such as “free” above, and for each candidate synonym,such as “download” above, the statistics used for the above tests can begathered for each of the most common contexts in which the phraseoccurs. In this example, the query would be reflected in statistics forall occurrences of “free” in the general context (:); for onlyoccurrences of “free” following “whale” in the context (whale :); foronly occurrences of “free” preceding “photos” in the context (: photos);and for only occurrences of “free” between “whale” and “photos” in thecontext (whale : photos). Because many queries containing the phrase“free” are processed, statistics will be obtained for many contexts inwhich “free” has occurred, quite possibly many thousands of differentcontexts.

For each phrase such as “free” above, and for each candidate synonym,such as “download” above, the above tests are performed for the overallcontext, to determine whether the substitution is generally a good one.For example, it may be determined that “download” is not a good synonymfor “free” in the general context, is a good synonym in the context (:photos), and is not a good synonym in the context (: press). Theconclusion in this example is that the context (: photos) is anexception to the general rule that “download” is not a good synonym for“free.”

From the query pairs, a subset is selected (operation 260) includingphrases with candidate synonyms that meet certain criteria. In oneembodiment, the criteria are some or all of the tests discussed above inthe general context. In another embodiment, a number of top candidatesynonyms are selected for the subset of query pairs. A synonym can beconsidered more significant than other synonyms, for example, if it isused in an altered query more often within user sessions, or if itsaltered query yields more search results in common with the originalquery.

Next, candidate synonyms are ranked (operation 270), or qualified, usingthe criteria discussed above. Initially, the system applies a set ofthreshold conditions, using the data gathered above as is discussed ingreater detail in conjunction with FIG. 4. In one embodiment, theconditions may specify that, for at least 65% of the original-alteredquery pairs, there is at least one search result in common and that thefrequency with which the altered query follows (e.g., occurs within fivesequential queries) the original query within a user session is at least1 in 2000. Then, the statistics from operation 250 are evaluated using afloat scale function to determine a score for each qualified synonym, asdiscussed in greater detail in conjunction with FIG. 3. This score is ameasure of the confidence in a qualified synonym. Depending on theapplication, greater or lesser confidence or strength will be required.Consequently, whether a qualified synonym is declared a useful synonymdepends on the threshold value of evidence that is sufficient for theapplication.

Referring again to FIG. 2A, following identification in operation 230 ofsynonymous terms, one or more altered queries are derived (operation280). Various methods exist for deriving alternative queries from thesynonymous terms. One such method is disclosed in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/629,479, filed on Jul. 28, 2003, entitled“System and Method for Providing a User Interface with Search QueryBroadening,” which is incorporated herein by reference. In oneembodiment, alternative queries are suggested that include the synonym,either as a substitution in or an addition to the query. In anotherembodiment, when a user enters a given query, a number of alternativequeries can be provided back to the user, along with the search resultsfor the original query according to various methods.

In one embodiment, the synonym is treated as equivalent to the originalphrase automatically for purposes of document retrieval. For example,the original query can be modified by replacing the phrase with asynonym or a disjunction of the original phrase and a synonym whenproducing search results for the query.

Based on the results obtained in the above operations, a list of alteredsearch results for the altered query is identified (operation 290). Inone embodiment, this list may include a maximum number of results.

FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary method for determining candidate synonymsfor search query terms according to one embodiment of the invention. Inone embodiment, the system sorts all queries received over a period oftime, such as a week (operation 310) by user ID (e.g., by cookie), andthen by time. This operation organizes the queries into individual usersessions, where a session is defined as queries from an individualclient device (or user) occurring with a given time interval, forexample one hour (though longer or shorter definitions of a session maybe used, as desired). Assume that within a one hour window from oneuser, the following queries were logged from an individual clientdevice:

[gm cars]

[gm new car prices]

[gm used car prices]

[general motors used car prices]

The system first eliminates certain queries as having insufficientcontext. In one embodiment, queries used in the analysis have at leastthree terms. Thus, in the forgoing example, the query [gm cars] iseliminated.

For each remaining query, all possible query fragments, orpseudo-queries, are formed by replacing a sequence of one or more termswith a marker or token (e.g., “:”), while leaving at least two words inthe pseudo-queries (operation 320). For the query [gm used car prices],the pseudo-queries are:

[: used car prices]

[gm : car prices]

[gm used : prices]

[gm used car :]

[: car prices]

[gm : prices]

[gm used :]

The generation of pseudo-queries may be described as iterativelyreplacing each term (or sequence of consecutive terms) of a query with auniversal token. The term (or sequence of terms) that is replaced iscalled a “phrase.”

Records are created for each pseudo-query of each query in session,which will be used to collect contextual information for thepseudo-queries, derive statistical information about term substitution,usage, and search result commonality (operation 330). Each pseudo-queryrecord is keyed by its pseudo-query, the original query from which itwas derived, and the phrase that was replaced by the token to producethe pseudo-query. The keying of the pseudo-query records in this mannerallows for multiple different sorts and aggregations of the pseudo-queryrecords as further described below. Operation 330 also optionallyannotates a pseudo-query record with the first ten resultant documentIDs (indicated below as “url#”) returned by the search engine inresponse to the query, either extracted from the log files (ifavailable), or indirectly with a pointer or other reference to anexternal store of the results.

According to one embodiment, fewer or no document IDs may be annotated,to reduce the required storage space.

For the above example user session, one data record produced for [gmused car prices] would be

{ pseudo-query: [gm : car prices],

original_query: [gm used car prices],

phrase: used,

related_phrases: <{phrase: new, before: yes, after: no}>

top_results: <url370293847, url123985709, . . . >

}

Another data record would be

{ pseudo-query: [: used car prices],

original_query: [gm used car prices],

phrase: gm,

related_phrases: <{phrase: general motors, before: no, after:yes}>

top_results: <url370293847, url123985709, . . . >

}

Note that in these examples of pseudo-query records, the fielddelimiters (e.g., “pseudo-query:”) are explicitly shown for illustrativepurposes only, and in practice, would not necessarily be present in theactual records themselves. In addition, in these examples, “relatedphrases” are phrases that may be classified as candidate synonyms.

One of the data records produced for the query [gm new car prices] wouldhave the same pseudo-query as the first record above:

{ pseudo-query: [gm : car prices],

original_query: [gm new car prices],

phrase: new,

related_phrases: <{phrase: used, before: no, after: yes}>

top_results: <url123985709, url093475987, . . . >

}

Similarly, one of the data records produced for the query [generalmotors used car prices] would have the same pseudo-query as the secondrecord above:

{ pseudo-query: [: used car prices],

original_query: [general motors new car prices],

phrase: general motors,

related_phrases: <{phrase: gm, before: yes, after: no}>

top_results: <url370293847, url123985709, . . . >

}

Generating pseudo-queries operates specifies the range of potentialcontexts of each phrase implicit within each query. The recordscorresponding to an individual pseudo-query reflect what is known (i.e.,across all user queries in the logs) about one set of queries thatdiffer in only one phrase.

The system then analyzes records for each pseudo-query to generate a newset of records that reflect how well each phrase can function as asynonym for some other phrase, if it occurs in the given pseudo-query(operation 340). Pseudo-query records are sorted by pseudo-query suchthat all records with the same pseudo-query are grouped together. Forexample, assume that the records for the pseudo-query [: used carprices] include the two examples from above, plus two more, all of whichare shown below:

{ pseudo-query: [: used car prices],

original_query: [gm used car prices],

phrase: gm,

related_phrases: <{phrase: general motors, before: no, after: yes}>

top_results: <url370293847, url123985709, . . . >

}

{ pseudo-query: [: used car prices],

original_query: [general motors new car prices],

phrase: general motors,

related_phrases: <(phrase: gm, before: yes, after: no}>

top_results: <url370293847, url123985709, . . . >

}

{ pseudo-query: [: used car prices],

original_query: [ford used car prices],

phrase: ford,

related_phrases: < >

top_results: <url283923887, url739572390, . . . >

}

{ pseudo-query: [: used car prices],

original_query: [gm used car prices],

phrase: gm,

related_phrases: < >

top_results: <url370293847, url123985709, . . . >

}

Thus, there is another query, [ford used car prices], as well as anotherinstance of the query [gm used car prices] from elsewhere in the logs.Operation 340 generates a single record for each phrase that isidentified in a pseudo-query. In other words, all records with the samepseudo-query are grouped together and a new record is created for eachphrase covered by the group, reflecting how that phrase relates to theother phrases of the group for that pseudo-query. Continuing the presentexample, operation 340 creates a record for each of the phrases “gm,”“general motors” and “ford.” Each record includes candidate synonyms forthe respective phrase.

In this example, each record output by operation 340 identifies the tenmost significant potential synonyms for each phrase. The significance ofsynonyms is determined at this stage independent of context according toa hierarchy of tests. First, a synonym that occurs in more relatedqueries within sessions is considered more significant than one thatappears in fewer related queries. Second, if two synonyms occur in thesame number of related queries within sessions (as is likely to be thecase, because relatively few sessions have related queries), a synonymis considered more significant than another if the results returned fora search query that includes the first synonym have more results incommon with the results returned for a query with the phrase. Finally,if two synonyms still evaluate as equally significant, one is consideredmore significant if it occurs more often within the queriescorresponding to the respective pseudo-query.

As this example shows, even though a query may appear in several datarecords, as does [gm used car prices], the query is not weighted moreheavily because it appears in more records. This aspect of thecalculation is based on empirical evidence that it is more meaningful toexamine many distinct queries than to simply count multiple occurrencesof a given query.

Continuing with the present example, for the phrase “gm,” and thepseudo-query [: used car prices], operation 340 would output:

{phrase: gm,

original_query: [gm used car prices],

related_phrases: <{phrase: general motors, common_urls: 5, before: no,after: yes},

{phrase: ford, common_urls: 0, before:no, after: no}>

}

As illustrated, operation 340 passes on the session information fromoperation 330. For example, the data record above reflects the sessionqueries “gm used car prices,” “general motors used car prices,” and“ford used car prices.” In many cases, like “ford” in this example,there the original and altered queries may occur in different sessions,yet not occur together in a single session. Operation 340 also comparesthe search results (using, e.g., the document IDs) for each original andaltered query if they were recorded, and tracks how many were in common.Thus, in the present example, [gm used car prices] and [general motorsused car prices] had 5 documents in common among their respective topten, while the results for [gm used car prices] had no documents incommon with those for [ford used car prices]. Then, the records producedby this operation are sorted by phrase, gathering together all recordsproduced by operation 340 for each phrase.

For each phrase, operation 350 computes statistics that reflect how welleach candidate synonym functions as a synonym in general (i.e., in thegeneral context, “:”), as well as in specific contexts. In the examplesat this level of the analysis, candidate synonyms are selected from theobserved “related phrases.” Continuing the present example, assume thatfor the phrase “gm,” operation 350 receives the above record, plus twomore:

{ phrase: gm,

original_query: [gm used car prices],

related_phrases: <{phrase: general motors, common_urls: 5, before:no,after: yes},

-   -   {phrase: ford, common_urls: 0, before:no, after: no}>        }        {phrase: gm,

original_query: [gm new car prices],

related_phrases: <{phrase: general motors, common_urls: 4, before:no,after: no},

-   -   {phrase: 2005, common_urls: 0, before:no, after: no},    -   {phrase: best, common_urls: 1, before:no, after: no}>        }        {phrase: gm,

original_query: [nutrition of gm food],

related_phrases: <{phrase: genetically modified, common_urls: 6, before:no, after: yes},

-   -   {phrase: macdonalds, common_urls: 0, before: no, after: no}>        }

Operation 350 determines how many queries contained a particular phraseand computes statistics for each candidate synonym of the phrase. In oneembodiment, this operation includes determining the number of queriesfor which the corresponding query with the synonym:

(i) existed (i.e., appeared in the logs);

(ii) existed and there was result data for both the original and alteredqueries, so that common results were computed;

(iii) existed and had at least 3 results in common;

(iv) existed and had at least 1 result in common;

(v) appeared earlier within a session; and

(vi) appeared later within a session.

Note that in the above operation the quantitative thresholds are forillustration purposes only. Other values of these thresholds can also beused.

In this example, for the phrase “gm” and the candidate synonym “generalmotors,” the statistical data is:

(i) existed (i.e., appeared in the logs): 2;

(ii) existed and there was result data for both the original and alteredqueries, so that common results were computed: 2;

(iii) existed and had at least 3 results in common: 2;

(iv) existed and had at least 1 result in common: 2;

(v) appeared earlier within a session: 0; and

(vi) appeared later within a session: 1.

This data suggest that “general motors” is a good synonym for “gm,”although, in practice, statistics may be gathered over at least 1000queries including the phrase “gm” in order to have sufficient confidencein the statistics.

In addition to evaluating these statistics for each synonym in thegeneral context, operation 350 also gathers statistics for each contextin which the phrase occurs frequently. For example, statistics can begathered for the 10,000 contexts for which the most queries exist. Inthis example, the contexts would be (:), (: used), (: used car), (:new), (: new car), (of :), (nutrition of :), (: food), and (of : food).Only one of the queries discussed in the above example (original queries[gm used car prices], gm new car prices], and nutrition of gm food])belongs to each of these specialized contexts, except the generalcontext, (:), which subsumes all three queries. Realistically, however,some contexts will include data from many queries. Operation 350evaluates the above statistics for each context, retaining, for eachcontext, only the 20 most common candidate synonyms.

Operation 360 further qualifies candidate synonyms using various tests.FIG. 4 is a table illustrating several tests that may be used toquantify the quality or strength or confidence of a candidate synonymaccording to one embodiment of the present invention. The tests 410apply to statistics gathered in operation 350.

The process begins by confirming that two preliminary conditions aresatisfied. The first preliminary condition is that for at least 65% ofthe original-altered query pairs, there is at least one search result(e.g., a URL) in common. The 65% parameter is empirically derived, andother thresholds can be used as well, depending on the corpus ofdocuments. The second preliminary condition is that for at least 1 in2000 of the query pairs, a user in a session enters the original queryfollowed by the altered query within, e.g., five queries. The thresholdvalues used in this particular embodiment are also for illustrativepurposes only, and other values can be used as well.

If both preliminary conditions are satisfied, operation 360 evaluates anumber of the statistics from operation 350 as a group and accordsweight to each statistic. The evaluation can be based on the followingfunction Scale ( ):

float Scale(float score, float base, float high) {

-   -   float x=(score−base)/(high−base);    -   float y=(x−sqrt(x*x+4.0))/2.0;    -   return 1.0+y;

}

where score 420 (ratio the test determines), base 430 (target value),and high 440 (scaling factor) are taken from the tests 410 of FIG. 4,which are described in greater detail below.

A series of tests 410 shown in FIG. 4 that apply function Scale ( ) tothe data evaluated in operation 350. Scale ( ) is defined such that thevalue returned is 0 when score=base, asymptotically approaches 1 whenscore 420 is a large positive value, and is equal to(score-base)/(high-base) when score 420 is large negative. The value ofbase 430 reflects a desired value for the given test. The individualtests are defined as follows.

frequently_alterable 450 provides a measure of whether, for each querywith the phrase of interest, the corresponding altered query occursfrequently enough (preferable more than 1%) to suggest that thecandidate synonym makes sense in context. The result of this test iscomputed as the result (i) from operation 350 (queries in log) over thetotal number of distinct queries including the phrase (TDQ).

frequently_much_in_common 460 evaluates whether the original queries andaltered queries typically exhibit enough results in common to suggestthat the meanings of the phrase and candidate synonym are similar.Preferably, at least 60% of altered queries have at least 3 searchresults in common with the original user query. The result of this testis computed as result (iv) from operation 350 (had at least one resultin common) over result (ii) of operation 350 (result data existed forboth original and altered queries).

frequently_altered 470 evaluates whether users occasionally try thesubstitution. Preferably, for every 2000 user queries, there is acorresponding altered query within the same session. The result of thistest is computed as result (v) from operation 350 (appeared earlierwithin a session) over TDQ.

high_altering_ratio 480 measures whether users do not preferentiallysubstitute in the opposite direction, i.e., substitute the phrase forthe candidate synonym, which would suggest that the original phrase ismuch better than the candidate synonym. Preferably, for every usersession in which the altered query is followed by the user query, thereis at least one session in which the user query is followed by thealtered query within a user session. The result of this test is computedas result (v) from operation 350 (appeared earlier within a session)over result (vi) from operation 350 (appeared later within a session).

The following parameters are then computed based on the above testresults:soft_and=frequently_alterable+2*frequently_much_in_common+0.5*frequently_altered+high_altering_ratio;evidence=1.0−exp(−soft_and/1.5),where exp ( ) is the natural exponential function, and soft_and reflectsthe totality of the test metrics. The above formula is only one possibleembodiment of the present invention. Other formulae are also possiblefor computing the confidence level of a synonym candidate.

The value of evidence is a measure of the strength of or confidence in asynonym. An evidence value approaching 1.0 indicates very highconfidence, while a value of 0.6 reflects good confidence. Depending onthe application, greater or lesser confidence or strength can berequired. Consequently, whether a candidate synonym is declared avalidated synonym depends on the threshold value of evidence that issufficient for the application. It has been empirically determined thatfor many applications, for example, a candidate synonym can bevalidated, e.g., considered equivalent to a phrase, if the value ofevidence is greater than 0.6. Again, other thresholds and variations ofthe scale function, and its subordinate functions may also be used.

A set of validated synonyms and the corresponding contexts in which theyare effective can be utilized in several ways. A conservative approachis to suggest to the user alternative queries into which the synonym hasbeen substituted. For example, when a user enters a given query, anumber of alternative queries can be provided back to the user, alongwith the search results for the original query. Each of the alternativequeries can be linked to its associated search results, so that the userdoes not have to manually re-enter the alternative query.

A more aggressive approach automatically treats the synonym asequivalent to the original phrase for purposes of document retrieval.This approach replaces a phrase with a disjunction of the latter and thesynonyms. For example, “gm” would be replaced by “gm” or “generalmotors.” Alternatively, if the evidence for a synonym is relativelyweak, the synonym can be used as suggestive rather than equivalent;

An aspect of the present invention includes a computer-implementedmethod to determine synonyms to serve as substitutions for phraseswithin an information search query. Candidate substitutions may besuggested to the user or automatically included in addition to or inplace of the original query. Alternatively, the candidate substitutionmay be used solely to modify the score associated with the retrieveddocuments. A formula may be used to assess the strength or quality ofcandidate synonyms, and the strength or quality may be compared to athreshold that is determined according to the application of interest.

Extensions

The preceding discussion described a generalized technique fordiscovering and generating context-sensitive synonyms. This technique isvery useful, but it fails to take into account an importantsignal—lexical relationships between words. Consequently, theabove-described technique misses many useful stems and other lexicallysimilar words.

The following discussion remedies this problem by considering specialclasses of highly-trusted synonyms which are lexically related to theoriginal word. We treat these synonyms differently and try to be moreinclusive of them in our data. These lexically related words can becategorized in various ways, but all share the trait of there being alexical connection between the original word and the synonym:

(1) synonyms that share the same stem as the original word, according toa industry-standard lexical stemming technique (e.g. car→cars);

(2) synonyms that differ from the original word according to punctuationor spacing differences (e.g. “wood stock”→woodstock,albertsons→albertson's);

(3) synonyms that are acronyms of the original word/phrase or viceversa. (e.g. VFW→veterans of foreign wars);

(3) synonyms that are similar according to a prefix-biased edit-distancetechnique;

(4) synonyms that are similar except for accenting on certaincharacters; and

(5) synonyms that are abbreviations of each other (hrs→hours).

The following section discusses exemplary implementations that detectlexical relationships between two words, as well as a scheme to includethis signal in synonym generation (as described above) and scoring theirconfidences that can be applied generally to anything deemed lexicallysimilar.

The following section first describes specific mechanisms forestablishing lexical similarity, and then describes a general techniquethat can use these detection mechanisms.

Detecting Lexical Similarity

Decompounding/Compounding

One technique for detecting synonyms that differ from the original wordonly by punctuation or spacing is to run through the original word andthe synonym, and remove all punctuation and spaces (both definedaccording to an accepted standard of character sets, e.g. UTF8). Thesystem then compares the results, and if they are equal, the synonymfalls into this class. These types of synonyms tend to be prevalent inGermanic languages. An example in English is woodshed→“wood shed”.Stripping out the spaces from both, we get “woodshed” and “woodshed”which are identical. An example of a punctuation difference isalbertson's→albertsons. After punctuation removal, “albertson's” and“albertsons” become the same.

Acronym Synonyms

If one of the words is a single word, the system can run a edit-distanceprocedure to align the original word and the phrase. “Edit distance”refers to the number of edits required to change one word to anotherword. In one embodiment, if a substantial number or fraction of thecharacters in the single word align with the first letters of the phrase(or vice versa), the system detects this word as an acronym. Inaddition, the system collects the first characters of all the words inthe phrase and runs the edit-distance procedure again against the singleword. If they are sufficiently similar within a predetermined number ofedits, the system deems the single word as an acronym. In anotherembodiment, the system checks that all characters in the word align withthe first character of each word in the phrase. For example, considerthe acronym NASA→“National Aeronautic and Space Administration.” Thesystem extracts from the phrase “NAASA” and attempts to align that with“NASA.” There would be one edit (the edition of an “A”). The maximumlength of both strings is 5, hence ⅕=0.20 is below 0.25, a predeterminededit-distance threshold. The edit-distance threshold needs not to befixed, and could be set based on empirical measurements.

Pseudostems

Standard stemming as a conventional synonym-generation technique canoften be overly conservative, because in the past it have been used toidentify stems without the help of any additional signals. Embodimentsof the present invention use standard stemming as just one signal in asystem that produces high quality synonyms and stems.

In particular, embodiments of the present invention uses“pseudostemming,” a technique that is fairly aggressive compared toconventional stemmers. During operation, if the original word and thecandidate synonym differ by one edit, the system concludes that thecandidate synonym is a pseudostem. Otherwise, the system uses a sequenceof tests: First the system computes the length of the common prefix thetwo words share. In one embodiment of the present invention, the systemdetermines whether the number of characters of matching prefix dividedby the maximum length of either string is greater than a giventhreshold. For example, for “shuttler” and “shuttling,” the commonprefix is “shuttl,” of length five. The maximum length is nine,therefore the ratio is 5/9, which is 0.56. An empirically determinedthreshold can be 0.5, hence this first test passes.

After the first test, the system examines the leftover strings of bothwords after the common prefix, which in the above example would be “er”from “shuttler” and the string “ing” from “shuttling.” The systemcalculates the edit distance between the leftover strings, which is anedit distance of three in this example (using a character mismatch costof one).

In another embodiment, the system can also require this edit distance ofthe leftover strings be less than a fraction of the maximum length ofboth strings. For example, the maximum length in the present example isnine, and a given fraction threshold is 0.4, hence the maximum editdistance for the strings to qualify as synonyms is 0.4*9=4.4. An editdistance of three is less than 4.4, hence in this case, the leftoveredits would also pass this test. Because the two words in this examplepass both tests, the system declares them to be pseudostems.

Diacriticals

In many non-English languages the use of diacritical marks and accentsare fairly common. The system can remove these marks with bothlanguage-specific and universal de-accenting. If the words aresubstantially similar after accent removal, they classify as lexicalvariants. In addition to removing accents in the original words, thesystem can further input the de-accented words to any of the abovetechniques. This additional operation allows the system to capture thecase where, for example, a character may be accented in the phrase foran acronym, but is not accented in the acronym itself. In oneembodiment, comparing an accented to unaccented character does not countas an edit in the pseudo-stemming or other techniques.

Gender/Number Stemming Detection

In one embodiment, the system can use linguistic rules specific to eachlanguage and develop a classifier that detects a word to be a“conservative” stemming variant of another word.

Abbreviations

Many people use abbreviations or short-hands for words. For example,“hours” can be written as “hrs” or “people” as “ppl.” In one embodiment,the system can detect abbreviations by removing vowels from both wordsand measure the edit distance. The system then determines whether theedit distance between the two shortened words is sufficiently smallcompared with the maximum length of both words. For example, removingthe vowels from “hours” produces “hrs.” The system computes the editdistance between “hrs” and “hrs,” which is 0. The maximum length in thisexample is three characters, hence the ratio is 0/3, or 0.0. This ratiois less than an acceptable edit-distance threshold, which is empiricallydetermined.

The above listed techniques are not exhaustive. The system can use theabove techniques in addition to standard stemming techniques to identifytrusted lexical synonyms. In particular, the system can use the Lovinsand Porter stemmers. Other stemmers can also be suitable replacements.

Using Lexical Similarity Detection in a Synonym Generation System

The aforementioned technique uses various signals to verify whether aword is indeed a synonym. This technique can be extended to coverlexical synonyms. In one embodiment of the present invention,determining whether a word is a synonym involves considering: (1) acommon result requirement, which specifies how frequently common queryresults should be produced when the word is substituted with the synonymin a query; and (2) a session switching requirement, which specifies howoften a user switched the word with the synonym in a given session.

Note that the common result frequency and the session switchingfrequency provide a rough estimate of how closely the original word andthe synonym are semantically related. Because the above detectors forlexical synonyms give us a stronger belief that the words aresemantically related, we can lower our requirements for common resultsand for session switching for these classes of synonyms. The system canalso determine how far to lower these requirements empirically.

It is observed that acronyms, compounds, and decompounds tend to havedifferent results and sometimes exhibit low session switching. In oneembodiment, the system requires no common results for such lexicalvariants. In a further embodiment, for compounds, decompounds, andpunctuation variants, the system can use ⅓ of the requirement forsession switching as compared with general synonyms, because compoundsand simple punctuation variants generally carry the same meaning andtherefore are more likely to be synonyms.

For pseudostems, stems, general/number stems, and abbreviations, thesystem can trade-off a high session switching rate and a high frequencyof occurrence of queries with the substitution anywhere in the logs fora decreased common results requirement. In one embodiment, this includesa high threshold on session switching and the appearance anywhere in thelogs (outside of sessions) of the synonym, which then triggers a lowerthreshold on common results. One could also create a differentembodiment that trades the signals with an appropriate mixing function,which is approximated by the threshold in the embodiment above.

The above description specifies schemes that are specific to eachlexical type in one embodiment of this invention, but one skilled in theart could recognize alternative schemes, such as categorizing the typesinto trust levels, symbolized by a number. This number could be used tomodulate an aggressivity function for mixing signals that could beequivalent to the above embodiment.

Alternatives

There are a number of alternatives to the above-described techniques.One might use different stemming techniques to decide that tokens sharethe same stem. One might also use slightly different edit-distancetechniques or a slightly different pseudostem filter (instead of usingmax length of strings, use average length, for example). One might alsouse the lexical signals to modulate synonym generation differently.Instead of using a different threshold for trusted lexical synonyms, wemight rate the level of trust and divide some base threshold by trust.

Detecting Correlated Terms

Generalized methods for discovering and generating context-sensitivesynonyms are useful, but sometimes produce terms that are notsynonymous. For instance, a synonym-generation technique that uses querychanges to generate synonym rules may find synonym rules such aswhite→yellow or January→February, which can sometimes shift the topic ofthe query (e.g., cause “topicality-drifting”). Examples of such topicshifts can include transitions between locations, which can cause thesystem to return query results that apply to a completely differentgeographical region.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system uses a set oftechniques that detect correlated terms, and may adjust system behaviorin response. For instance, the system may detect a set of correlatedterms that relate to a query term, and then structure a set of resultsfor the query that convey both a “strict” set of results that do notencompass results from the set of correlated terms as well as an“expanded” set of results that also include search results derived fromthe correlated terms. Alternatively, the system may determine that suchcorrelated are a negative influence, and be more conservative inbuilding synonym rules for such correlated terms, or even filter outsynonym rules relating to such correlated terms. For instance, thesystem may demote the signals generated by synonym rules that involvecorrelated terms.

Techniques to detect correlated terms can include techniques to: detectcorrelated geographic-entity terms; identify common co-occurringelements in lists; and identify additional correlated terms in differentlanguages.

Note that in the following description, a query term and a possiblesynonym can each comprise one or more words.

Correlated Geographic-Entity Synonyms

Synonym transitions between locations can often affect query results.Synonyms that cause location transitions relate geographical entities toone another, e.g. New York→New Jersey, San Francisco→California,Miami→Florida, and Germany→France. Note that such problematictransitions can occur in multiple languages. For instance, the systemmay detect a transition from Ungarn→Österreich, the terms used forHungary and Austria in the German language.

Often such geographic synonyms are in fact related. In the aboveexamples, New York and New Jersey are neighboring states, and Miami is acity within the state of Florida. Because these geographic entities areso strongly related, and may even sometimes be useful as synonyms,determining whether they should be used as synonyms can be difficult.However, changing the geographic area for a query can lead todramatically different (and potentially inaccurate) query results.Hence, it is desirable to intelligently identify correlatedgeographic-entity terms that are used as synonyms.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system uses geographicdata to identify correlated geographic terms. During operation, thesystem receives a term and a possible synonym for the term. The systemdetermines whether the term and the possible synonym are both present inthe geographic data set, and, if so, uses the geographic data set todetermine whether the possible synonym is a correlated geographicsynonym for the term.

Geographic Data Sets

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system receives as aninput a geographic data set that lists major world geographic entitiesand the relationships between them. For instance, this geographic dataset can include a list of countries, and the major cities within thecountries. The geographic data set can also be more specific, e.g.including regions such as states, provinces, and/or counties.Furthermore, the geographic data set can optionally assign to eachgeographic entity one or more coordinates and/or a bounding box thatdescribes a multi-dimensional area (such as a state, country, or largecity) and/or shape.

The system can use an automatic translation system to translate the nameof each geographic entity in the geographic data set into a set ofdifferent available languages. For instance, if an entity name is“Deutschland” in German, the system can translate the entity name into“Alemania” (in Spanish) and “Germany” (in English), thereby producing alist of entity names in a number of languages that are associated withthe same location. Furthermore, the system can take the output list fromthis translation process and add all of the diacritical variants (ineach respective language) to the set of possible entity names for alocation. Hence, the system associates the set of geographic entities inthe geographic data set with a list of different ways to write eachentity name in each of many languages. The system can then invert thislist to create a mapping from all of the entity names in each list toeach respective corresponding geographic entity. Note that thetranslation process allows the translation of terms, but not transitionsbetween words. Hence, the entity name “Munich” may be translated to“München” (the German name for Munich) as well, because both correspondto the same location, but “Munich” would never be mapped to “Berlin,”because the two cities are distinct.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the geographic data set canbe visualized as a tree of geographic entities, as shown in FIG. 5. Atthe top level of the tree are a set of countries 502, where each treenode that represents a country includes the set of words that areconsidered equivalent names for that country. For some data sets, thecountries may be further broken down into geographic regions 504, suchas states, provinces, and/or counties, each of which can includeassociated cities 506. Alternatively, if no region data is available fora country 502, the tree node for the country may instead point directlyto a number of cities 506 in the country. If the data set does notinclude containment data for a geographic area, a bounding box technique(e.g. based on longitude and latitude data) may be used to distinguishthe areas covered by a geographic entity or to determine if twogeographic entities overlap. Note that when the system checks to see ifa term is a geographic entity in the geographic data set, the systemtypically does not simply stop after the first match of the term with alocation and/or area. Instead, because a given entity name may show upmore than once at different levels or within the same level of the tree,the system may continue to search through the entire geographic data setfor additional matches. For instance, the system may check whether theterm is the name of one or more countries 502, regions 504, and/orcities 506.

Determining Correlated Geographic Synonyms

FIG. 6 illustrates the process of determining correlated geographicsynonyms in one embodiment of the present invention. First, the systemreceives a term and a possible synonym for the term (operation 610).Next, the system determines whether the term and the possible synonymare both present in the geographic data set (operation 620), which caninvolve determining geographic locations and/or areas related to theterm and the possible synonym in the geographic data set. If the systemfinds no geographic entities in the geographic data set that match theterm and/or the possible synonym (operation 630), the system determinesthat the term and the possible synonym are not correlated geographicsynonyms, and the process completes.

If the system finds geographic entities that match the term and thepossible synonym in the geographic data set (operation 630), the systemcompares the two geographic locations and/or areas against a set ofcriteria to determine whether the possibly synonym term is a correlatedgeographic synonym (operation 640). For instance, the system maydetermine that the term and possible synonym to form a correlatedgeographic synonym if:

-   -   both terms identify different countries (e.g. Germany and the        United States);    -   both terms identify different regions in the same country and/or        region (e.g. two states within the same country, such as New        York and New Jersey);    -   both terms identify different cities in the same country and/or        region (e.g. two cities in the same state, such as San Francisco        and San Jose in California);    -   one term identifies a location, city, and/or area that is        contained within a country or region specified by the other        geographic location and/or area (e.g., “London” and “United        Kingdom,” where United Kingdom is the country to which the city        London belongs in the geographic data set; and/or the city        “Atlanta,” which is in the region/state “Georgia” in the        geographic data set); and/or    -   both terms identify different cities contained within a bounded        area defined by a specified distance and/or shape (e.g. two        cities within 100 miles of one another).        The system may determine criteria for correlated geographic        synonyms based on observed problem synonyms or criteria received        from a user or administrator. For instance, the system may        determine the above criteria based on an observation that issues        with correlated synonyms often arise for two geographic entities        at a peer level (e.g. two countries, or two peer geographic        entities in a country and/or region) or when one geographic        entity contains the second geographic entity. If the system        finds based on the criteria that the two terms form a correlated        geographic synonym (operation 650), the system may in response        filter a synonym rule or otherwise adjust synonym behavior        (operation 660). If not, the system continues to consider the        term and the possible synonym as valid synonyms.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system analyzes theparent geographic area for transitions between cities and identifies theproximity of the two cities to determine whether the cities might beunrelated but have names that often correspond to reasonable synonyms.If the parent area or region for two cities is substantially the same,the system flags the two terms as correlated geographic synonyms. Forexample, “San Jose” and “San Francisco” share a parent region,California, and hence might be flagged as a correlated geographicsynonym. To determine this, the system might make use of variousproximity tests that identify whether an entity pair may be correlated.For instance, the system may only identify correlated geographicsynonyms when the two terms are actually related in the real world dueto a specified level of proximity. A fine-grained geographic data setmay include cities contained in sub-country entities such as states orprovinces, in which case this check may determine whether two cities arein the same state (e.g. a synonym rule mapping the city of Minneapolisand the city of St. Paul in the state of Minnesota, or a synonym rulemapping the city Davis to the city Sacramento in the state ofCalifornia). For countries where the geographic data is sparser, theimmediate parent region may have a coarser granularity, and checking theparent region for two cities may result in the system checking to see ifthe cities are both in the same country (e.g. mapping the city Munich tothe city Berlin in the country of Germany).

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system can alsodetermine a language variation and/or a lexical variation for the termand/or the possible synonym. For instance, the system may translate oneor more terms into another language, or compute an unaccented form ofone or more terms using a diacritical system. The system can then alsocheck whether these additional variations are present as geographicentities in the geographic data set, thereby checking all translatedand/or modified versions at the same time. Alternatively, the system maylook up only one normalized form, for instance the unaccented form of aterm. Looking up an unaccented form of a term or phrase may providebenefits when available synonym data includes obscure accented forms ofterms which may not be present in an index of geographic entities.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system may determinethat an expanded set of terms representing the original term and anexpanded set of terms representing the possible synonyms can produce anumber of geographic entities in the geographic data set (e.g. a singleterm, such as “Springfield,” may map to more than one town). In thissituation, the system may analyze the geographic data for all possiblepairings from the two sets of possible terms to determine whether eachrespective pair forms a correlated geographic synonym. For instance, forevery element original_entity in the geographic entity set correspondingto the original term, the system can iterate through every elementsynonym_entity in the geographic entity set for the possible synonym,adding each pair (original_entity, synonym_entity) to the list of pairsto be tested.

For example, if the set of geographic entities for the original term is{o1, o2, o3}, and the set of synonym entities is {s1, s2, s3}, thesystem can generate the pairs {(o1, s1), (o1, s2), (o1, s3)} for o1, anda corresponding set of pairs for o2 and o3 as well. Once the systemdetermines the possible pairs of geographic entities, it can apply a setof tests and/or criteria (as described above) to determine whether eachpair forms a correlated geographic synonym.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system considers howgeographically-dense the city data for a country is in the geographicdata set. Such geo-density data may be used as a factor in howaggressively the system decides on and/or handles correlated geographicsynonyms. For instance, for countries with dense city data, the systemcan apply stricter geographic-closeness tests. Additionally, the systemmay automatically determine the density of cities in a region orcountry, and adapt accordingly.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system may interactivelyseek user feedback. For instance, the system may present the user withidentified correlated geographic synonyms, and allow the user to makeadjustments and/or corrections to the query and/or synonym behavior.

Note that, as mentioned previously, the system may determine possiblesynonyms based on the context (e.g. the surrounding terms) for theoriginal term and the context of the possible synonym. The system trackssubsuming contexts, where each subsequent context may be more generalthan a given target context. For instance, the terms York and Jerseyalone may not be commonly found as a synonym rule. However, when the twoinclude an anchoring term (“New”), the rule York→Jersey in the context(new :) becomes more likely, and the two terms become recognizablegeographic entities (e.g., state names). Hence, checking for correlatedgeographic synonyms may involve checking longer phrases derived from thesurrounding context. In one embodiment of the present invention, thegeographic data set typically includes a limited amount of geographicdata, and the system checks whether all or a number of possible termsand/or phrases in a given context are present in the geographic dataset. The system may also incorporate data from the geographic data setas well as other query terms to determine whether the context of thequery is incorrect (e.g. “Golden Gate Bridge Oakland” VS. “Golden GateBridge San Francisco”).

Note that in some situations using geographic synonyms may improve queryresults. For instance, a user searching for a restaurant located nearthe border of the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, but actually inSt. Paul, may (erroneously) use the query “Hunan Garden Minneapolis.”Collected synonym data may provide a synonym rule “Minneapolis→St. Paul”that could assist in this case, but such a rule might in turn beeliminated by a system that detects correlated geographic synonyms. Onealternative is for the system to demote, but not eliminate, correlatedgeographic synonyms, so that high-rank results arising via the synonymrule will still be considered in the query results. In this example, ahigh-ranking result for the restaurant in the town of St. Paul couldstill be returned, even though the query specified Minneapolis. Anotherexample is the query “Australia scuba rental” in light of a synonym ruleAustralia→Sydney. While Sydney is geographically in Australia, using thesynonym rule may provide some beneficial results, and synonym ruledemotion may be more appropriate than synonym rule elimination,depending on the circumstances, the query context, and the set of queryresults for all related queries. The system may be tuned to weighseparate criteria differently. For instance, the system may alwayseliminate country-to-country and city-to-containing-state transitions,but only reduce the weight of, and not eliminate, city-to-citytransitions for cities in the same geographic region.

Note also that the system operate under different conditions. Forinstance, the system may determine whether a term and a possibly synonymfor the term are correlated geographic synonyms while activelyprocessing queries (e.g. in an online mode), or while evaluating one ormore synonym rules in an offline mode.

Identifying Common Co-Occurring Elements in Lists

The aforementioned synonym-generation approaches can be very effectivein generating synonym candidates. However, synonym misidentification canstill occur and words with opposite meanings can be falsely consideredas synonyms. For example, the above approach could misidentify “army”and “navy,” “cat” and “dog,” or “LCD” and “CRT” as synonyms. It istherefore desirable to screen the synonym-candidate pairs and filter outnon-synonyms.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and a system forgenerating a collection of non-synonymous pairs and using thiscollection as a heuristic to apply higher confidence thresholds to suchpairs for inclusion as a synonyms. To accomplish this goal, theinventive system includes two components. The first component identifiescorrelated pairs based on a document corpus. The second component uses acollection of correlated pairs to demote them as synonyms.

The first task in identifying correlated pairs is to traverse a corpusof documents. A corpus refers a collection of documents, and can includeall the pages available on the Web. Note that a “document” is notlimited to a Web page. Generally, a document can include any informationbased on conventional media, such as paper, or electronic media.Examples of documents include books, newspapers, news letters, emails,electronic files, applications, instant messenger (IM) messages, audiofiles, video files, or other data or applications that may reside on oneor several of computer systems, such as a network.

The importance, or weight, of the occurrence of a term in a documentincreases proportionally with the number of times the term appears inthe document, but is offset by the frequency of the word in the corpus.In other words, if a term is more likely to occur in a large number ofdocuments, the importance of this word's occurrence decreases, becauseit is more likely that the term is commonly used and its occurrencecarries less significance. In addition, documents from the same sourceor same author are more likely to contain the same words, and thereforesuch documents carry less weight in determining the importance of thoseterms which occur therein.

Hence, the system can filter the corpus to improve the quality of thedocuments. For example, the system can restrict the documents within acorpus to be of different authorship. Note that “authorship” herein isbroadly defined and not limited to mean only authors who wrote thedocument. Instead, documents of different authorship can be documentsfrom different pages within one Web site, documents from different IPaddresses, or documents submitted by different users. In addition, thesystem can differentiate documents according to the type of Web sitewhere the document is hosted. For example, if a document is hosted on aWeb page, the system can determine authorship based on the IP addressand sub-directory names of the location where the document resides. If adocument is within a Web-based bulletin-board system (BBS), the systemcan determine authorship of a post by the user ID of the user whoposted. In general, any type of document filtering schemes can be usedto improve the quality of the corpus.

Subsequently, the system traverses the corpus and searches for listswhich contain co-occurring elements or terms. The terminology “list”generally refers to structured data containing enumerated pieces ofinformation, such as lists of restaurants, lists of automobile types,lists of names, etc. A list can be defined in a number of differentways. For example, a list may include an ordered list or unordered list.Special tags in a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) document identify thepresence of ordered and unordered lists. An ordered list commences withan <OL>tag; whereas an unordered list commences with an <UL>tag. Eachitem in an ordered or unordered list is preceded by an <LI>tag.

Another type of list may include a definition list. A special tag in anHTML document identifies the presence of a definition list, whichcommences with a <DL>tag. Each item in a definition list is preceded bya <DT>tag. Yet another type of list may include document headers.Special tags in a HTML document identify headers using <H1> through<H6>tags. Other types of lists may be presented in yet other ways. Forexample, a list may be presented as items in a table or as itemsseparated by commas, spaces, or tabs. Details of how to identify andgenerate a list are provided in U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/425,819, entitled “Systems and Methods for Predicting Lists,” filed30 Apr. 2003, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Note that lists are not limited only to HTML lists. A list can be anyenumeration of information delimited by one or more special characters.Furthermore, the system can traverse the lists during Web crawling.Other manual or automatic methods for list traversing are also possible.

In one embodiment, these lists of terms are considered as sets ofinterrelated terms. For each set of terms, the system records thefrequency of encountering the set while traversing the corpus. Once allunique sets of terms, or lists, are collected, the system searches forterm co-occurrence and rarity within sets. Particularly, the systemsearches for terms that occur frequently together, but do not occurfrequently in all of the lists. For example, if “abc” and “123” occur inmany lists, but only very occasionally together in a list, thecorrelation between “abc” and “123” is considered to be very low. Bycontrast, if a large number of sets mention “Lakers” and “Rockets”together, but only a few mention “Lakers” without mentioning “Rockets,”or vice-versa, the two terms are considered to be correlated. Ingeneral, the system computes an association or correlation value thatrepresents the strength of equivalence between two terms.

The system can adopt various models in computing the correlation betweenco-occurring list elements. In one embodiment, the system computes thecorrelation as follows. The system measures the number of lists whereboth terms occur. For example, the system records a first number oflists where both “Lakers” and “Rockets” are present. The system alsomeasures the total number of lists where either “Lakers,” or “Rockets,”or both are present. In one embodiment, the correlation is then computedas the first number divided by the total number. The result indicatesthe correlation between the two terms. If this result is greater than apredetermined threshold, the system places the two terms in acorrelated-pair “blacklist.” Note that this example is only forillustration purposes. The system can adopt more fine-tuned and subtlemodels to more accurately reflect actual measured statistics.

FIG. 7 presents a flow chart illustrating the process of identifyingcorrelated pairs in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention. During operation, the system first traverses the documents inthe corpus (operation 702). The system then retrieves the lists from thecorpus (operation 704). The system further records term presence in allthe lists and frequency of occurrence within lists (operation 706).Subsequently, the system builds a map of terms and the number of uniquelists in which they occur (operation 708). In one embodiment, the systemonly builds a map for terms for which the observed occurrence frequencyis greater than a predetermined value (for example, 50).

Next, the system computes an association between two terms for all theterms that have been mapped (operation 710). In one embodiment, thesystem performs the following operations. First, the system determineswhether a term A co-occurs with a term B in lists containing over Nassociations and also in M unique lists. In one embodiment, N is chosento be 2 and M to be 10. Note that an association refers to acorrespondence between two terms within a list, such as twocorresponding entries in a row. For example, “republican” and “democrat”can be one association. The system can identify an association byanalyzing the HTML tags. Alternatively, or in addition, the system canidentify associations based on human inputs.

Second, the system computes term A's correlation to term B, which isdenoted as A→B and defined as:(number of times term A co-occurs with term B)*log [(total number ofunique lists observed)/(number of unique lists containing term A)].

If the A→B correlation is greater than K, which in one embodiment is setto be 50, the system records the association A→B. The system performsthe above screening process for all the term pairs, and obtains acollection, or “blacklist,” of term pairs which can potentially benon-synonymous pairs (correlated pairs). Based on this blacklist, thesystem performs the second task of demoting the correlated pairs whendetermining whether the pair qualify as synonyms.

Different methods can be used to demote or penalize the correlatedpairs. In one embodiment, the system can preclude term pairs present inthe blacklist from being considered as synonyms. The system can alsoapply a threshold function to reflect a more subtle penalty, ordemotion, imposed upon a correlated pair.

In one embodiment, the system applies a penalty formula to a correlatedpair to ensure that, in order for the correlated pair to qualify assynonyms, a user is switching between the terms sufficiently frequentlyor that each term occurs frequently in high-ranking documents returnedby queries based on the other term.

First, the system determines whether a large number of switches arepresent from a query containing the original term (denoted as “o”) to analternative query containing a substitute term or a synonym candidate(denoted as “a”). In one embodiment, the system can measure a likelihoodof the o→a switch over a large number of query sessions by differentusers. For example, the system can compute the ratio of the number ofo→a switches over the total number of distinct queries including theoriginal word or phrase over a long period of time, based on a largepool of users. This measurement indicates the likelihood or probabilityof a user switching from an original query to an alternative query.

Next, if the o→a switch probability is sufficiently high, the systemdoes not change the synonym thresholds. That is, even if the candidatewords or phrases appear in the correlated-pair blacklist, the systemdoes not penalize or demote the pair for consideration as synonyms,because a user is likely to switch between the pair based on empiricaldata.

If the o→a switch probability is low, the system applies stricterrequirements for the pair to qualify as synonyms. For example, thesystem can increase one or more thresholds as described in thecomputation model for the evidence variable.

As an example of the above procedure, the system can set an o→a switchprobability threshold to be 0.1. That is, the system measures the totalnumber of o→a switches from a pool of users over a long period, anddivide this number with the total number of queries containing theoriginal word or phrase. If the result is equal to or greater than 0.1,the system does not change any of the thresholds used in the computationof evidence. If the result is less than 0.1, the system increases thebase threshold for frequently_much_in_common to 0.9 and maintains thehigh threshold, thus making it more difficult for the correlated pair toqualify as synonyms.

FIG. 8 presents a flow chart illustrating the process of screeningcorrelated term pairs in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention. During operation, the system performs this process on everyidentified synonym candidate based on an original query. The systemfirst determines whether a pair of synonym candidates are in the list ofcorrelated pairs (operation 802). If so, the system applies furtherconfidence constraints on the synonym candidates as described above(operation 804). The system then determines whether the synonymcandidates meet the new confidence thresholds (operation 806). If so,the system keeps the candidates as synonyms and generates an alteredquery based on the synonym (operation 808). Otherwise, the systemdiscards the candidate (operation 812).

If the candidates are not in the list of correlated pairs, the systemdetermines whether the candidates meet the original confidence thresholdas described in conjunction with FIG. 4 (operation 806). If so, thecandidates are kept as synonyms (operation 808). Otherwise, the systemdiscards the candidate (operation 812).

FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary computer system for identifying commonco-occurring elements in lists in accordance with one embodiment of thepresent invention. A computer system 902 includes a processor 904, amemory 906 and a storage device 908. Computer system 902 is coupled to adisplay 914, a keyboard 910, and a pointing device 912.

Storage device 908 stores a number of applications, such as applications920 and 922. Also stored therein is a synonym identification program916, which includes a co-occurring elements determination module 918.During operation, synonym identification program 916 is loaded intomemory 906 and executed by processor 904 to perform the aforementionedoperations.

Identifying Additional Related Terms in Different Languages

As described in the previous section, techniques for generating synonymrules provide generalized methods for discovering and generatingcontext-sensitive synonyms, but may sometimes produce rules for wordsthat are related but not really synonymous. Examples of such rulesinclude white→yellow, 1→2, Monday→Tuesday, and cat→dog. A list of suchrelated terms may be specified for a synonym system to adjust synonymrules and/or system behavior. For instance, synonym rules that involvesuch terms may be displayed differently, or may be given either anincreased or reduced weight. However, for a multi-language system,specifying such a list of related terms in every possible language, andacross languages, can involve considerable effort.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system uses a set ofterms known to be related to identify additional related terms indifferent languages. During operation, the system receives two termsthat are known to be related. Next, the system translates both termsinto another language using an automated translation system. The systemthen adds the pair of translated terms to a gathered list of knownrelated pairs.

Note that the system can receive one or more automatically-generated ormanually-created pairs of related terms, where each pair in the listindicates two words that are related. Terms in the list of input pairsand in each given related pair may be specified in a common language orin different languages. For instance, a list of pairs specified inEnglish can include: (red, green), (blue, red), (one, two), (vi, vii),and (dog, cat). Alternatively, a list of pairs may also be specifiedacross languages, e.g. a mix of English and German: (red, blue), (red,grün), (eins, two), (grün, gelb).

Note also the technique described in the present invention can be usedto determine related pairs across multiple languages for a wide range ofinput pairs. For instance, the set of examples in the previous paragraphcomprise pairs of terms that are related to one another but typicallyconsidered non-synonyms. In this scenario, the system finds additionalnon-synonyms of this type across multiple languages. Alternatively, thesystem can instead receive as input a set of related pairs that aresynonyms, for instance (cat, kitten), (fast, quick), and (weird,strange). In this scenario, the system finds additional synonyms acrossmultiple languages. The system may use the resulting list of knownrelated pairs in very different ways, depending on the relationshipbetween the terms of the initial input pairs.

In some embodiments of the present invention, the system uses anautomatic translation system to translate terms into multiple languages.For instance, the system may receive the pair (red, green) (in thiscase, specified in English), and then translate the pair into French,Spanish, Italian, and/or other languages. In some cases, the system mayfind more than one possible translation in the new language, especiallyin languages where there may be multiple word forms for a given word. Inthis case, the system may add pairs to the gathered list of knownrelated pairs for each combination of possible translations for thepair. For instance, when translating (red, green) from English intoSpanish, the system may determine that “red” can be translated into both“roja” and “rojo,” and that green can be translated into “verde.” Inthis case, the system might determine that two additional pairs outputfor Spanish would be (roja, verde) and (rojo, verde). The system couldautomatically add these pairs into the gathered list, and then repeatthe translation process for the original pair into another language,such as French.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system translates one orboth terms into one or more languages. The system can then use the tworesulting sets of translated terms to form same-language and/orcross-language pairs, and add those pairs to the gathered list. Forinstance, the system can take the cross-product of the two sets oftranslated terms found for the two original terms, and then add everypossible pairing combination between the two sets to the gathered list.

Once the system has translated all of the original input pairs, and allof the translated pairs have been added to the gathered list, the systemcan use an access method to compare a potential pair of terms with thepairs in the gathered list. For instance, consider an application thathas used the described techniques to determine pairs of non-synonymterms by expanding an initial set of known non-synonym pairs into agathered list of non-synonym pairs. If a potential synonym pair beingevaluated matches a pair in the gathered list, the system determinesthat the potential synonym pair is a non-synonym pair. For example,following the previous example, if, during operation, the systemreceives the pair (rojo, verde) as a possible synonym pair, the accessmethod finds that this pair is present in the gathered list, and returnsthat the pair is likely to be a non-synonym pair. Otherwise, if a pairis not in the list, the access method may return “false,” to indicatethat the pair was not in the gathered list.

Note that the gathered list of known related pairs may be used bothinteractively (online) and in a batch (offline) way. For instance, thesystem can access the gathered list during a query, to determine whethera possible synonym for a term should be considered during the query.Alternatively, the system may receive as input a set of possible synonymrules for an online query system, and adjust the confidence of orotherwise change behavior relating to non-synonym pairs based on thecontents of the gathered list.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system can normalize aterm and/or a translated term during the translation and/or lookupprocess. For instance, the system may generate both normalized andun-normalized versions of the pairs to ensure that unusual variations ofterms are identified correctly.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system determinesvariations for one or both of the terms in the original input pair,thereby effectively increasing the number of known related pairs. Forinstance, the system can determine high-confidence synonyms for a termand/or normalize a term prior to translating the term. The system cantake the cross-product for two sets of such variations (derived from anoriginal known related pair), and then use all of the resulting knownrelated pairs as inputs to the described method, thereby generatingadditional known related pairs for the gathered list.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the system receives as aninput a set of terms that collectively are related. For instance, thesystem might receive a set of all common colors, e.g. {red, green, blue,yellow, purple, etc}. The system can expand this set into an equivalentlist of pairs comprising all possible pairings from the set, and thenproceed to execute the previously-described method for each resultingpair. Exemplary sets of such related terms can include one or more ofthe following: different colors; different months; different days of theweek; different numbers; different animals; and/or a set of termsspecified by a user to be related.

FIG. 10 presents a flow chart illustrating the process of generating agathered list of known related pairs from an initial pair of knownrelated terms. For instance, in the case where the initial pair of knownrelated terms are two terms that are known to be related non-synonyms,this gathered list could serve as a blacklist of known non-synonympairs. During operation, the system receives two terms known to berelated (operation 1010). The system computes variations and/ornormalized versions for each of the two terms (operation 1020), and thentakes the cross-product of the resulting two sets of variations for theterms to generate a set of known related input pairs (operation 1030).Then, for each individual input pair in the set of known related inputpairs, the system translates each of the two terms in the pair into allavailable languages (operation 1040), and generates a normalized versionof each resulting translated term (operation 1050). Next, the systemtakes the cross-product between the two sets of translated termsgenerated for the two original terms (operation 1060). (Note that thesystem can include the original terms in the two sets when taking thiscross-product, or also limit the cross-product operation to be on aper-language basis). The system then adds the initial and translatedlists of known related pairs to a gathered list that can be used todetect related terms (operation 1070).

FIG. 11 illustrates the process of using a gathered list of related termpairs to detect related terms. During operation, the system receives twopossibly-related terms (operation 1110). The system proceeds to look upthe two possibly-related terms in the gathered list of related terms(operation 1120). If both terms are present as a pair in the gatheredlist (operation 1130), the system flags the two possibly-related termsas a related pair (operation 1140), and handles them accordingly.Otherwise, the system continues to consider the two terms as unrelatedterms.

In summary, in one embodiment of the present invention the systemtranslates terms known to be related into other languages to increasethe set of known related terms. The described technique allows termsknown to be related in a first language to be used to improve queryresults for queries specified in additional languages. Note that theinput of the source list can be specified in any language (or mix oflanguages) that can be automatically translated into another language.

The foregoing descriptions of embodiments of the present invention havebeen presented only for purposes of illustration and description. Theyare not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the present invention tothe forms disclosed. Accordingly, many modifications and variations willbe apparent to practitioners skilled in the art. Additionally, the abovedisclosure is not intended to limit the present invention. The scope ofthe present invention is defined by the appended claims.

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving a query term anda possible synonym for the query term; accessing a geographic data setthat associates geographic location names with corresponding positionsin a tree structure, wherein different positions in the tree structurethat share a same level correspond to different geographic locationsthat share a same geographic region type; identifying a first positionin the tree structure of the query term and identifying a secondposition in the tree structure of the possible synonym for the queryterm; determining that the query term and the possible synonym for thequery term are problem synonyms based at least on a relative position ofthe first position in the tree structure with respect to the secondposition in the tree structure wherein the problem synonyms are twoterms that have related geographic contexts according to the treestructure; and notifying a search engine that the query term and thepossible synonym for the query term are problem synonyms.
 2. The methodof claim 1, wherein determining that the query term and the possiblesynonym for the query term are problem synonyms according to a relativeposition of the first position in the tree structure with respect to thesecond position in the tree structure comprises determining that thefirst position in the tree structure and the second position in the treestructure are at a same level in the tree structure.
 3. The method ofclaim 2, wherein determining that the term and the possible synonym forthe query term are problem synonyms according to a relative position ofthe first position in the tree structure with respect to the secondposition in the tree structure further comprises determining that thefirst position in the tree structure and the second position in the treestructure share a parent in the tree structure.
 4. The method of claim3, wherein determining that the query term and the possible synonym forthe query term are problem synonyms comprises: determining a granularityof geographic data in the tree structure of a country containing a firstgeographic location associated with the query term and a secondgeographic location associated with the possible synonym for the queryterm; determining that the granularity is below a threshold; anddetermining that the geographic region type of the shared parent in thetree structure of the first geographic location and second geographiclocation is a country.
 5. The method of claim 3, wherein determiningthat the query term and the possible synonym for the query term areproblem synonyms comprises: determining a granularity of geographic datain the tree structure of a country containing a first geographiclocation associated with the query term and a second geographic locationassociated with the possible synonym for the query term; determiningthat the granularity is above a threshold; and determining that thegeographic region type of the shared parent in the tree structure of thefirst geographic location and second geographic location is a state orprovince.
 6. The method of claim 2, wherein determining that the queryterm and the possible synonym for the query term are problem synonymsfurther comprises determining that the geographic location correspondingto the query term and a geographic location corresponding to thepossible synonym are separated by a distance that satisfies a thresholdphysical distance.
 7. The method of claim 6, further comprising derivingthe threshold physical distance from a geographic density of thegeographic location corresponding to the query term.
 8. The method ofclaim 1, wherein determining that the query term and the possiblesynonym for the term are problem synonyms according to a relativeposition of the first position in the tree structure with respect to thesecond position in the tree structure comprises determining that thefirst position in the tree structure is an ancestor of the secondposition in the tree structure.
 9. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining that the term and the possible synonym for the term areproblem synonyms according to a relative position of the first positionin the tree structure with respect to the second position in the treestructure comprises determining that the second position in the treestructure is an ancestor of the first position in the tree structure.10. The method of claim 1, wherein the relative positions of thegeographic location names in the tree structure are determined accordingto relationships between geographic locations corresponding to thegeographic location names.
 11. The method of claim 1, further comprisingreceiving a search query and identifying the query term from the searchquery.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein identifying the query termfrom the search query further comprises translating a first term of thesearch query in a first language to different second language, and usingthe translated query term as the query term.
 13. The method of claim 11,wherein identifying the query term from the search query furthercomprises normalizing a first term of the search query and using thenormalized query term as the query term.
 14. The method of claim 11,wherein identifying the query term from the search query furthercomprises determining an unaccented form of the term of the searchquery.
 15. The method of claim 11, wherein notifying the search enginethat the query term and the possible synonym for the query term areproblem synonyms comprises excluding the possible synonym from a set ofsynonyms for the query term, wherein the set of synonyms is used toidentify search results responsive to the search query.
 16. The methodof claim 11, wherein notifying the search engine that the query term andthe possible synonym for the query term are problem synonyms comprises:generating a set of synonyms for the query term, the set of synonymsincluding the possible synonym, wherein each synonym in the set ofsynonyms has an associated weight; and demoting a weight associated withthe possible synonym in response to the determination that the queryterm and the possible synonym for the query term are problem synonyms.17. The method of claim 11, further comprising: providing an expandedset of search results that includes search results that are retrieved bya search engine using the query term and the possible synonym; andproviding a strict set of search results that includes search resultsthat are retrieved by a search engine using the query term, withoutusing the possible synonym.
 18. The method of claim 1, wherein thepossible synonym is determined using a context for the query term in thesearch query.
 19. The method of claim 1, wherein each particularposition in the tree structure corresponds to a plurality of differentnames for a geographic location.
 20. The method of claim 19, furthercomprising generating the geographic data, the generating includingtranslating a name for a geographic location into multiple languages.21. The method of claim 1, wherein when the query term occurs atmultiple positions in the tree structure, the method further comprisingrepeating the determining that the query term and the possible synonymfor the query term are problem synonyms for each of the multiplepositions in the tree structure.
 22. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining that the query term and the possible synonym for the queryterm are problem synonyms based at least on a relative position of thefirst position in the tree structure with respect to the second positionin the tree structure comprises: receiving a set of criteria associatedwith a user who submitted the query term; and applying the relativeposition to the set of criteria associated with the user.
 23. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: determining a geographic distancebetween a first geographic location associated with the query term and asecond geographic location associated with the possible synonym for thequery term, wherein the query term and the possible synonym for thequery term are determined to be problem synonyms further based on thegeographic distance between the first geographic location associatedwith the query term and the second geographic location associated withthe possible synonym for the query term.
 24. The method of claim 1,wherein the geographic region types include one or more of a country, astate, a province, a county, or a city.
 25. A system, comprising: one ormore computers programmed to perform operations comprising: receiving aquery term and a possible synonym for the query term; accessing ageographic data set that associates geographic location names withcorresponding positions in a tree structure, wherein different positionsin the tree structure that share a same level correspond to differentgeographic locations that share a same geographic region type;identifying a first position in the tree structure of the query term andidentifying a second position in the tree structure of the possiblesynonym for the query term; determining that the query term and thepossible synonym for the query term are problem synonyms based at leaston a relative position of the first position in the tree structure withrespect to the second position in the tree structure; and notifying thesearch engine that the query term and the possible synonym for the queryterm are problem synonyms.
 26. A computer-readable storage mediumencoded with a computer program, the computer program comprisinginstructions that, when executed by data processing apparatus, cause thedata processing apparatus to perform operations comprising: receiving aquery term and a possible synonym for the query term; accessing ageographic data set that associates geographic location names withcorresponding positions in a tree structure, wherein different positionsin the tree structure that share a same level correspond to differentgeographic locations that share a same geographic region type;identifying a first position in the tree structure of the query term andidentifying a second position in the tree structure of the possiblesynonym for the query term; determining that the query term and thepossible synonym for the query term are problem synonyms based at leaston a relative position of the first position in the tree structure withrespect to the second position in the tree structure; and notifying thesearch engine that the query term and the possible synonym for the queryterm are problem synonyms.